This is an outline for a talk given at the Corvallis Beer & Blog.

Topics

• Characteristics – What’s Drupal like? Compare to Wordpress.
• Modules – What will you likely want to add?
• Demo: create a page and link it to a menu using just the core install.
• Demo: taxonomy and views (time permitting.) Probably just speak to it.

Charactaristics

• Installation is similar to Wordpress. 1-click install on Cpanel.
• Need to install a few modules to bring Drupal up to same capability as a Wordpress core install. Drupal core install does not include, for example:
  • WYSIWYG HTML editor.
  • Spam filter. 
  • Email notification option for comments.
• Relatively complex menu system.
  • Typically takes a couple weeks to learn your way around.
  • Requires some abstract thinking to understand the connections between some modules and settings. For example, between blocks and menus on the core install, or taxonomy and views modules for more advanced views.
• No coding required.
  • Drupal is popular among software people, however. Users often make code changes, because they can. (Hacking the core is strongly discouraged.)
• Highly integrated.
  • Very fast and efficient, once you learn your way around.
  • Editing is integrated with views.
• A complete framework.
  • Very flexible menus, and views (with the right modules and right knowlege.)
  • Capable as a full featured community site. Ability to host:
    • Multiple users.
    • Multiple blogs.
    • Bulletin board discussions.
    • Photo gallery.
    • Storefront (said to be not as capable as Joomla in this area.)
• Very granular permissions.
  • Three default roles: anonymous, authenticated (has an account), and administrator.
  • Administrator can define additional roles, for example: limited admin, gold member, platinum member.
  • In the permissions menu, each module is broken into activities for which the administrator can grant or deny permission by role.
• Functional also as a personal blog, or small business web site.
  • Use only the modules you need. Use only the menus and settings you need.
  • You can grow with Drupal as you go along.

Popular Modules

Depends somewhat on need, and opinions vary of course.

Excellent site for module reviews is http://drupalmodules.com/

• WISYWIG HTML editor.
  • WYSIWYG API with either:
    • FCKeditor (if you’re more advanced. Lot of settings. Need to define HTML tag filters.)
    • TinyMCE (tends to work a little better out of the box.)
• Spam filter.
  • CAPTCHA and reCAPTCHA
  • and/or Akismet or mollom
  • or other anti spam module
• Taxonomy - tagging system.
• Views - sophisticated views module.
• CCK - content construction kit. (haven't worked with this yet.)
• Image modules (haven't worked with these yet.) Good tutorial at http://www.drupaltherapy.com/node/47
  • ImageCache
  • Image API
  • ImageField for CCK
  • Views bonus (?)

Demos 

• Create a page, and link it to a menu using just the core install.
• Taxonomy and views to create a new view (time permitting.) Probably just talk through.